Snack Ideas to Replace Packaged Food

[stephanie95]

I am hoping you all will have ideas to help me get away from the packaged, convenience foods my kids love.

My biggest struggle are the chewy granola bars. My DS loves them and my DH can't understand why I buy them. He thinks I can make my own. All I can come up with is oatmeal cookies. Not the same to my DS.

Anyone have any luck making a similar item at home?

Also, my kids love those stupid "fruit" snacks. I realize I can quit buying them. My 2 year old doesn't ask if we don't have them, but my DS does. He's 13. Plus I've bought them for him since he's been going to school. I do buy the healthier ones but still. Any ideas? I tried fruit leather last summer, but it came out crunchy rather than chewy. Even my DH who eats anything said to toss it. The pigs enjoyed them.

My DS also likes the hot pockets, ham & cheese and pizza. I think they look like calzones, but I have no idea how to make them myself or how to cook/recook them (esp frozen). I'd like to find things I can make, freeze and he can heat in the microwave when I'm not home or he just needs a snack.

Thank you in advance for your help.

[cristeen]

Fruit leather is about timing. If it came out crunchy you dried it too long - try taking it out earlier or checking it more often to get the texture you want.

Hot pockets are pretty easy. You can google recipes for calzone, empanada, piroshki, etc. They're all the same basic premise - bread stuffed with something. If he's just going to microwave them then you want to fully cook them, cool them then freeze them - then it's just a matter of a minute or two in the microwave. You can use a pizza crust, a yeast bread dough or a pie crust recipe for the bread portion - each one turns out differently of course, but they're all good.

[rebirth]

yep- I make my own "hot pockets", and I use a pizza dough usually. Delish! I've used a pie dough for more meaty fillings as well, and that was good too.

For granola bars, there are a ton of recipes online. I don't buy or make them, but I have tried them before from a friend, and they were very good. She made them extra healthy with chunks of dried fruit instead of candy/chocolate additions. Honey and no flour I think is the key difference between a cookie dough and chewey granola bars. You can wrap them in parchment and staple them shut to pack.

A great healthy snack is trail mix, that is my go to. I go to the bulk bins nad buy tons of yummy things then mix up a batch, it is so good, and good for you!

Another thing we like is air-poppped popcorn. It is an especially econimical snack too, at 1.29 a lb for organic kernals. They last a LOT of uses, and we just repaced our air popper for 25$. It was old and faithful, but we dropped it!

Trying to get your children to eat as whole foods as possible will make snacking easier, and it'll probably be an adjustment time as they get off of all that packaged stuff, but it'll be worth it, health and money wise.

[KathinJapan]

I would give up on making granola bars for now. I am 100% sure you can make great ones, but they will be very different from what your children are used to / want to eat.

We have muffins or pancakes as snacks a lot here. Sometimes I make sandwiches with the pancakes with creamcheese and jam. Fresh fruit is popular. One DD likes homemade trail mix. Cheese and crackers are a hit.

I try to respect wishes but there is also a lot of this is what we have ... like it or lump it.

Processed foods are designed to taste good it is a transition to get used to the REAL taste of food again.

Do you children like to cook? Maybe get a cookbook like Honest Pretzels or Baking with Children to get started on making your own snacks.

HTH,
Kathryn

[Storm Bride]

My kids like storebought granola bars, but I do make my own sometimes. I'm not sure if my little ones have even figured out that mine are granola bars, too. I think they think they're a kind of cookie.

See if you can find a recipe you like. Granola bars aren't hard to make, although most of them take quite a few ingredients.

Other than that...I don't know. My kids mostly snack on nuts and plain dried fruit when we're out. If we're home, they snack on fresh fruit, veggies or yogurt, for the most part.

[Devaskyla]

Hoping more people post ideas. My kids usual snacks are granola bars, nutrigrain bars, milk puddings, breakfast cereal (usually generic mini-wheats, but occasionally generic corn pops), yogurt & bananas. I try to find super easy stuff that I can basically just tell them go grab x to eat, but I'd like to get healthier things that I can do that for. Unfortunately, neither of them are really into veggies, especially my oldest, & most fruit needs to be peeled/cut up & I never seem to get around to it, plus ds1 doesn't eat most of those, either.

Nuts/trail mix is a great idea that I hadn't thought of, though. I thought about yogurt covered raisins but I can't entirely decide how healthy those are & the kids would inhale them & be looking for more if that's all I offered.

[Radish4ever]

Getting bread dough, cutting into rectangles, filling with your favorites (ham & cheese.... cheese & tomato sauce with pepperoni....etc), pinching the edges and then baking until browned is easy ... then just cool them, pop the pan into the freezer to "flash freeze" them, then repackage in a big ziploc or whatever and pop out however many you want when you want to heat a few up. EASY!

Another easy snack that we love is bagel bites. Just split mini bagels (we use whole wheat), spread a little leftover spaghetti sauce or pizza sauce, top with cheese of choice and whatever toppings you like (we usually use turkey pepperoni) same process as above OR you can just freeze it like that and then microwave or pop in the oven (depending on how crispy you want it)... very good, cheap, and easy!

[Chinese Pistache]

We love this granola bar recipe. http://www.canadianfamily.ca/article...-oatmeal-bars/ They come out chewy. Plus, they're super flexible as we have several allergies. I just switch things up as needed.

[CalaRei]

We made quesadillas last week that turned out to be great heatable snack leftovers - they were better if you put them in a toaster oven than if you microwaved them. We just used beans, salsa, some cheese, and corn, but you could slip some shredded chicken in there for added protein. Salsa, sour cream, guacamole for dipping, perhaps. After browning them in the pan, we cut them into quarters or eighths for storing, and I munched on them all week (being pregnant, I can't eat a lot at a time, and these still had decent nutrients in them.)

Dried fruit is really a lot of fun. I like apple rings/slices, and I've done my own leathers, but it's not really cost effective - I buy them from the store. Most of my favorite dried fruits are not local or easily attainable - pineapple, mango; we also get these at the store. But berries and things are good for cereals and granola and trail mixes. Kiwis become so tart it's like those sour candies! Lol.

Something that's not really all that healthy, but we LOVE, is when we have leftover homemade pizza dough, we'll wrap it around pepperoni chunks into balls - a little butter over the top, and bake - freeze 'em in bags, and they're great for parties, so probably good for snacking, too.
We've also done mini-mini pizzas this way by rolling out the dough, and using a wide drinking glass as a cutter, like cookies - then top with cheese and whatever came out of the garden (we love hot banana peppers) and bake just a little, to keep everything together. Cool and freeze.

[lil_earthmomma]

Start cutting up fruits when you get home from grocery shopping and sticking a mix of fruits into baggies for easy grabbing and snacking! Or make a giant fruit salad that your kids can help themselves to.

We do the same with veggies and with cheese, meat, crackers.

Puddings... well what about just replacing that with yogurt, or homemade custards, or the custard style yogurts from hillbilly housewife?

English muffin or greek pita pizzas are easy and fun for kids.

Muffins. Healthy, portable, easy to grab and go... Could totally replace prepackaged snack food.

Oatmeal cookies? Granola?

Smoothies rock!

Um... bottom line, just stop buying the junk. Figure it out from there. Your kids will not die without pudding, or cereal, or granola bars.

[Thalia the Muse]

One good sub for granola bars is a fruit-based bar cookie -- I'm thinking of those date-nut bars you can make, with chopped dates and oatmeal.

Most of the snacks here are fruit, homemade cookies (when someone gets it together to make said cookies), Greek yogurt, cheese and crackers, celery with peanut butter, a few olives, nuts, popcorn, stuff like that. The crackers are store crackers, because no one is motivated to bake our own, although I'm sure they'd be good.

[LemonPie]

Originally Posted by Chinese Pistache

We love this granola bar recipe. http://www.canadianfamily.ca/article...-oatmeal-bars/ They come out chewy. Plus, they're super flexible as we have several allergies. I just switch things up as needed.

Those look so good! My kids love the chewy granola bars too, though I don't buy them very often.

So, the recipe didn't say, but I'm assuming you use real 100% maple syrup and not the 'maple-flavored syrup'?